Yes I meant to include that. The wife and I watch “Alone,” this wilderness survival show, and as the competitors lose weight and start starving, they start looking much older, a lot like Jeff Cavaliere from AthleanX.
Lifter's Lounge
- Thread starter Hannibal
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I've got injuries in my lower body that would probably prevent squat type stuff (although I can rep pistol squats) but my training is 50% cardio 50% calisthenics. I do a lot of barefoot running, normally 5-15k at a time. My weeks look like calisthenics push day, barefoot running day, calisthenics pull day, rest day, repeat. I don't want huge quads but I do want big, ripped calves & barefoot running will give you that, especially on hills. But yes, many calisthenics people have chicken legs. No, I don't really want to be that big personally. Weight lifting/commercial gyms & the culture that surrounds it is also a big turnoff for me.
Gymnastics Bodies forum is a good source, but Coach Sommers is not without controversy but I don't know enough about him to comment, but have heard many complaints. I don't think RR goes as far as a planche but I got mine through the million different progressions I learned on youtube vids, it's probably at least 50 or 60 different excersizes.
In the West, the gymnastics world is very closed off, it's 95% rich people (just to train gymnastics requires a massive warehouse w/tons of equipment, it's a 200-300K investment up front) & most gymnasts come from family lines, their fathers/grandfathers/etc were gymnasts & they understand they'll waste their entire youth on training & then get set up with a cushy/easy jobs coaching rich kids in the suburbs once they burn out at 25 or 30. So in the US, gymnastics is fairly elite stuff but in Ukraine or Russia, the Soviets had systems setup so that everyone could train gymnastics & that legacy continues to today. In Kiev & Moscow I met many people who could planche. I said that to say yes, planche is a tough move, but given enough training most males are capable of achieving it, regardless of genetics. And thats where modern western calisthenics/street workout comes from, people who want to train gymnastics but can't afford it.
Brothers, I regret to inform you all that (and forgive me for saying this word) a woman started training in the weights section while I was there this morning. I brought this upon myself by mentioning it yesterday. She was older and modestly dressed thankfully.
Anyone have a good bench they recommend with legs for quads and hams?
Also a squat rack (some accessories would be nice, like pull down, etc)?
Also a squat rack (some accessories would be nice, like pull down, etc)?
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Yes sir. One of my fondest memories of living in Vietnam the past 4 years was joining an unairconditioned gym. The ladies that did have a membership would go early in the morning, leaving the place for serious lifting men the rest of the day/evening.
It was awesome working out in that dump with some big dudes and making some great connections. The owner, a competitive bodybuilder, even discouraged women from coming any time after 10am.
I'm back in the US now, working out in a Christian gym, and it's still ridiculous being around these silly attention seeking girls. I can't get a bench/rack because a girl is using it to get that butt big. Gotta get that butt big.
I'm over it.
Budget?
Can't remember are you US based or Europe?
I"m in the US.
I already have bench with a squat stand (old golds gym), so looking to upgrade a little. The leg attachments don't work well nor have wide range of motion. So I"m not looking to spend a lot - maybe $500-600.
staddlelateen
Catholic
It wasn't like this before. I've been going to gyms since 2012, and it's only since about 2018 that the Instagram thot nightmare started. It's hard to overstate how destructive it is. These women are ultra narcissists, so in any sane society, their behavior should be shunned and these women should be ostracized. Instead, their behavior is encouraged and promoted, leading more and more women to act like them. Weak men protect these women through simping, which leads these women to become more arrogant and self-destructive (seen in those absurd TikTok trends). Instead of gyms being spaces for male bonding, they inevitable turn into high-school environments where women gravitate to the alphas, while the betas orbit the alphas to try and gleam some female attention from them. It's all part of a greater pattern where any positive male spaces are destroyed, preventing men from networking and bonding.
Pistol squats are weird. I used to be able to do them easily and my legs were weaker. Now my legs are a lot stronger and I can't do them as easily. I suppose I lost flexibility and got fatter along the way.
Interesting training regimen. I know gymnasts have massive levels of conditioning from all the movement drills they do, what they once did for strength they do for cardio.
Coach Sommers is a zealot, which is fine if that's what he wants to do. He is trying to make money after all. I did Foundation One for eight months when it came out eleven years ago and I plateaued hard on pushups, 5 sets of 15 followed by this weighted arm windmill thing between sets. The last set I couldnt get over 9 reps and the program wouldn't let me progress. Then I quit and moved on to weights.
I always like this article on front lever and planche, but at the time I was not educated enough to know proper shoulder position.
Agree on that about gymnastics in the US. What should be knowledge based, approachable and require little in the way of equipment turned into a sport for the wealthy. Should only "need" a set of rings and parallets. Maybe a swedish wall after a fashion.
Just so you know, that article you sent by Coach Sommers, although it's a good article, that's not where you start. He's not going to say this publicly since he saves this stuff for his students, but I knew a guy who trained under Coach Sommers in person & he mentioned that before he even begins front lever progressions he requires his students to do 6 reps of 60 seconds hollow body holds. Most bar park trainers will want at least 15 perfect form chest to bar pull ups before starting front lever work too.
I doubt you plateau'd on pushups, that's fairly basic stuff. You probably never learned perfect form, Like this. And for planche work, before you'd even begin tuck planche you need to have this specific type of pushup (along with some other exsersizes) dialed in perfectly.
Most of these youtubers run side businesses training people & you can film yourself & send it to them & they'll help you. Years ago I used Dominik Sky & he was great. So if you were to begin calistenics again I'd recomend that, or you surround yourself with a group of guys at a barpark who can help you.
I doubt you plateau'd on pushups, that's fairly basic stuff. You probably never learned perfect form, Like this. And for planche work, before you'd even begin tuck planche you need to have this specific type of pushup (along with some other exsersizes) dialed in perfectly.
Most of these youtubers run side businesses training people & you can film yourself & send it to them & they'll help you. Years ago I used Dominik Sky & he was great. So if you were to begin calistenics again I'd recomend that, or you surround yourself with a group of guys at a barpark who can help you.
I've done pullups for a long time, and I was doing heavily weighted ones. I'm pretty tall but not a huge guy; I've been lean with definition for years though. At age 39 or so I finally got my first nagging elbow tendinopathy, and it wasn't tennis elbow, it was brachioradialis origin tenderness. This rendered pulls fairly impossible in terms of healing. Chin ups were still fine, and natty or not showed me also they are better for you overall. I love doing deadlifts, and I do squats, and the only other soreness (I'm well over 40 now) I've ever had is more recently quad tendon soreness at the patellar insertion. Just popped up out of nowhere, to the extent I thought I rain into something and didn't remember doing it.
Who knows. Most of training is psychological. I fast a lot, don't eat as much protein, take weeks off at a time, and think I'm getting soft. It turns out, I'm still the same me with the same weight for 15 years now. It's sorta funny. If I keep drinking booze, maybe that'll change by age 55, but I doubt it, lol
I recently got a new job but stuck to my routine. I have been doing a 2 day split for a decade now. Going heavy and then two days rest (or cardio in the summer). I started eating more, while in the past the budgeting was always in the back of my mind. I gained a few kilos and it seems to be of the positive kind. : )
Looking forward to keeping the meat and the vegetables up for the rest of the year and beyond. The body rewards you long term and the mind is also happy (common sense, I know).
In the gyms I made some friends that I run into frequently. Yes some of the women are detestable. It is one good way to tell a pleasant woman - if she tells you right off the bat that she does not feel comfortable going to gyms nowadays.
Looking forward to keeping the meat and the vegetables up for the rest of the year and beyond. The body rewards you long term and the mind is also happy (common sense, I know).
In the gyms I made some friends that I run into frequently. Yes some of the women are detestable. It is one good way to tell a pleasant woman - if she tells you right off the bat that she does not feel comfortable going to gyms nowadays.
I'd look for a sale one fb market or Craigslist.
If you buy new and want the best, I'd save up and recommend anything from elite fts, but they're not cheap.
(Non woke, never cucked to BLM, and the owner is really quality guy whom I've interacted with and from the Westside Barbell crew Dave Tate)
Rogue makes some nice garage line products.
For $800 is hard to beat.
$875 monster lite (hard to beat also and can accept attachments)
Was going through the thread properly..
I try not to use a weight that makes me do a set of less than 8 or 6 at the minimum.
Now I read this and wonder if I should shift the "standard" number to something lower and make the weight heavier. Is 10 not the standard number anymore? Maybe whoever told me that back in the day was wrong.
Yesterday for example I did 2 x 10 shoulder press with 20kg in each arm then a third set of 8 which was failure.
Have neglected that "inclined" bench press, only do the flat one these days. There's two kinds of inclining.
Since I first was introduced to the gym, I did 3 x 10.
I try not to use a weight that makes me do a set of less than 8 or 6 at the minimum.
Now I read this and wonder if I should shift the "standard" number to something lower and make the weight heavier. Is 10 not the standard number anymore? Maybe whoever told me that back in the day was wrong.
Yesterday for example I did 2 x 10 shoulder press with 20kg in each arm then a third set of 8 which was failure.
Have neglected that "inclined" bench press, only do the flat one these days. There's two kinds of inclining.
I only did sets with high reps, like 25 when it came to various ab exercises, obliques, crunches. Do 4 x 25 of something if I do it, but generally neglect abs it's less enj́oyable than the weights exercises. Nothing more than 10 for all the other weights exercises. Before I started deadlifting I used to use the 'roman chair' and also do 4 x 25 back extensions on that, but almost never get on that anymore.
I had a little daydream the other day that men at the gym could start doing all kinds of things which would make them go away, dropping weights, grunting, aggression. Each city often has one or two old school ones with just very muscular guys and no women of the posing kind. I didn't mind a few women at the gym but there is something in the modern age about the clothing and behaviour which has changed. I watched that video @Christos_NIKA posted in its entirety, that was a funny analysis from a very well built guy. It's not a good phenomenon that, where people are almost breaking a social code to look at each other, but has not really infested most gyms I go to that much.
I stretch when it feels it needs it. After an intense time on a warm up treadmill I had to stretch. Otherwise I don't bother.
Just happy that Europe has not caught up to America on this, never see cameras and people filming themselves in the gyms here thankfully.
The "standard" is all relevant.
I lift in all rep ranges from 1 - 30. The key is effort. If you're going to failure on a set of 3 vs just barely breaking a sweat on a set of 12 then the set of 3 is going to have more profound effects.
Paul Carter (I've got his book with Christian Thibaudeau) has a good podcast below on volume/rep ranges ect.
Amazon product ASIN 1926659325
Correct, Foundation One had all that. I was making plenty of progress into hollow body holds, rows, scap shrugs, cossack squats etc. A sane person would add a little weight to pushups for a few weeks then go back to unweighted. I wasn't the only one who hit my head against that wall and regressed.
That article was written 20 years ago when all Coach Sommers trained were true athletes. Then he expanded his scope after writing his book and realized that the average out of shape adult trainee needs a lot more than 15 seconds on a hold to progress. It is an excerpt from Building thr Gymnastic Body, which is still a book for serious athletes and not for someone looking to get started.
New rules for the gym:
Something really fired me up today.. I was doing 20 minutes on the treadmill as a warm up at max cardio. First the guy on my right finished his training then returned with a spray bottle and proceeded to mist up the air with detergent and scrub down the machine as if he was trying to prevent an outbreak of Ebola. Honestly when my pulse is going that fast I don't need those chemicals entering my lungs. A few germs can anyway do one good to help build up immunity. A few minutes later a girl on my left finished as well and again, returned with a spray bottle.
Are people training for the Olympics, in whatever discipline, running around with a spray bottle after they've finished a set?
- Please do not wipe sweat from the machines and benches - if the next person has not brought a towel that's their problem. Your membership fees pay for our cleaners who will sanitise properly once a day, nothing more is needed.
- Please be courteous and leave one large 20kg plate on the bar for the next person. If that is too heavy for them they shouldn't be in there.
Something really fired me up today.. I was doing 20 minutes on the treadmill as a warm up at max cardio. First the guy on my right finished his training then returned with a spray bottle and proceeded to mist up the air with detergent and scrub down the machine as if he was trying to prevent an outbreak of Ebola. Honestly when my pulse is going that fast I don't need those chemicals entering my lungs. A few germs can anyway do one good to help build up immunity. A few minutes later a girl on my left finished as well and again, returned with a spray bottle.
Are people training for the Olympics, in whatever discipline, running around with a spray bottle after they've finished a set?
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Batman
Heritage
^I've noticed it's mostly women that insist on wiping down machines after they're done (even if there's no sweat). Who tf cares. I've never wiped down machines or benches before using them (even if there's sweat on them) nor do I after using them myself. Hell, even during Covid I would workout, go to the sauna, get groceries, come home, cook and eat dinner, and not having washed my hands the whole time. Never got sick.
Such a ridiculous notion that you should do it for the next person. If you're so concerned, do it yourself, or let the employees do it since it's their damn job. I don't even think they're doing it out of germaphobia they're doing it for the same reason as recycling, for this psuedo moralistic superiority of doing "the right thing." My inner misanthropy is coming out here but seriously you got me worked up over this now because it's such clown behavior.
Such a ridiculous notion that you should do it for the next person. If you're so concerned, do it yourself, or let the employees do it since it's their damn job. I don't even think they're doing it out of germaphobia they're doing it for the same reason as recycling, for this psuedo moralistic superiority of doing "the right thing." My inner misanthropy is coming out here but seriously you got me worked up over this now because it's such clown behavior.
BehindTheLines
Catholic
Definitely a "pick your poison" type of comparison, although powerlifting appears to result in more severe (multiple days off) types of injuries than weightlifting does.
No idea the validity of the study.
I do know most people have no clue how to clean, snatch, and jerk.
And even fewer people do them than powerlifting...which is much more common in the US. (Also many people who don't know what they're doing say they are powerlifting)
I'm very skeptical that this study is an apples to apples comparison.
I can tell you from going to CrossFit gyms pre-Marine Corps, that the Olympic weightlifting structure and programming was not ideal...and people were hurt there too.